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Memento Mori, a Latin reminder of mortality: remember you will die. This describes the feeling of the three worlds well. In the Human World, activity centers around a prosperous Japanese coastal city. Somewhere between the end of the Heian period and the beginning of the Kamakura period, the equilibrium between the worlds, the balance of souls, began to change at a near exponential rate. Holy men came, skilled in archery and all forms of melee, trained in a temple centered around a great, mystical tree. This immense tree is always in full bloom, never changing or withering. The Tree is a living store of the spiritual energy of the area and the deceased. Over thousands of years, the Tree has stood for reasons unknown, gathering and storing within itself free spirit energies. Exposure to the tree has granted the hallowed warrior-priests, the Quincy, abilities unknown to humans generally. It also draws to it the hunger of monsters, the Hollow. These beings are the corruption of a soul, overwhelmed by emotion and unable to pass on or in some cases, themselves former human victims of another ravenous Hollow. The energies of the tree serve as a beacon to them, and the villagers pay the cost in lives. The Quincy, aware of the monsters and the occasional katana wielding soul reaper, take a stand. They use weapons made of the limbs of the great spirit tree to fight on par with both races of spirit beings. They will not stand idle while their home is trespassed freely and their lives are seen as forfeit. Originally created out of the occasional spontaneous corporealization of spirit energies into a conscious being, the Shinigami are guided by a being greater than they. The Spirit King and his Spirit Queen have over the recent millennia adopted a duty to guide the dead souls of the human world beyond their emotional anchors and into peace. Any but the worst sinners are escorted into the Shinigami world, where a Society of Souls has been created: Shikonkai. These human souls continue an existence not unlike that they knew as humans, though rare among them are the spiritually adept. Over time, these powerful human souls were taken under the wing of the pure Shinigami, divided into four noble houses. They were trained to continue this sacred duty of the preservation of balance, as had the nobles been by the Spirit King. With that said, there were others: the corrupted human souls, the Hollow. As humanity populated the world, the numbers of the Hollow grew. The Shinigami manifested part of their souls into a weapon called a zanpakutou. With these weapons, they were able to cleave away the emotional agony and torture that enveloped the souls that were now Hollow, freeing them to pass into Shikonkai to await their turn in the reincarnation cycle. Over time, it became a crusade to save them, an honored duty, and one which the denizens of Rukongai (Outer Shikonkai) aspired to be a part of. To be a Shinigami was the dream of non-noble souls, and the destined calling for each noble. Things changed when the Quincy began to shift the influx of souls. Their weapons, you see, destroyed Hollow and their human essence within. This was an affront to everything the Shinigami had assimilated as their purpose. The Spirit King would not see this continued and ordered his Shinigami to wipe them out for the preservation of balance. This decree was not welcomed by all in Shikonkai, and the Spirit Queen stood up to her King in defense of the Humans’ existence. The line was drawn and sides chosen. The Shinigami were cast into a great civil war that cost the eternal existence of many. In the end, with Shikonkai naught but rubble and all but the youngest and greenest nobles wiped out... the Spirit King stood in victory over his former Queen. Immortally wounded, the Spirit King must enter hibernation, a sleep of indeterminate depth and length. He willed his last Shinigami to carry out his decree and protect the soul balance. Shikonkai must be rebuilt and the souls must be guided into it, Hollow and Human alike. The interlopers with their wanton annihilation of spirit, the Quincy, must be killed for the sake of things greater than their human perceptions. The remaining few nobles gathered what they could of the study materials and teachings from the dead: the martial practices, the magic kidou and the manifestation of a weapon, zanpakutou. The duties to purify the hollow, guide the dead and bring death to the Quincy were now theirs. They would be the gods of death as their name implies. As she fell from the Spirit King’s arms, the Spirit Queen seemed to lose cohesion and vanish. In truth, however, while he slumbered in torpor, she appeared in throes of agony in the Hollow World. Until this, it had been indistinguishable from the Human World and Shikonkai save for the roaming hordes of the Hollow. The Spirit Queen’s anguish drew the attention of something that was only rumor, a Vasto Lorde. This small figure approached the writhing energies in the shape of a little girl. Immediately, the Spirit Queen latched onto the figure and became one with the disguised monster, as she had lost her corporeal form. Her form was now stable, but she was mindless with her pain and rage, in need of enormous energies to heal her. The new being and former Spirit Queen reached out in fury and razed the entire realm to her in ravenous hunger. Not just the Hollow, but the world itself. Even the sun that lit the sky was consumed in this moment. Fire and ice, it was all drawn into her till only wasteland filled the world. The few that were strong enough to resist her pull found themselves unopposed and without steady food. Things settled into a new equilibrium in the stark realm of Hueco Mundo. The strongest of the Hollow evolved into two lines: Arrancar and Vasto Lorde. These first beings saw the being that had eaten their world. They saw power and strength to aspire for or they felt the desire not to be themselves devoured. The former Spirit Queen had no memory of her prior existences. Both sides of her dual nature feel only a hate for all things Shinigami and an endless hunger. A hunger for blood, for souls, and perhaps somewhere deep down, for revenge. She gathered the remaining beings to her, in some cases fashioning them to serve her needs, agonizingly twisting them in body and will to serve her. She created from her own hands a palace deep in Hueco Mundo with her ghoulishly-crafted Hollow, remnants as she called them, filling its spaces. The remaining free-willed Hollow and Arrancar, not wanting this fate, distanced themselves across the expanse of Hueco, creating their own dominions. They became known as Barons and Baronesses, and swore (usually grudgingly) fealty to the former Spirit Queen. She seemed content for now as she rested in her new seat of power, letting them play their games against one another. Perhaps it was amusing and entertaining, or perhaps she was tired and in need of rest like the Spirit King. No one knows for certain. Three sides, all in dire conflict, each in a war of survival against the other two. Bleach: Memento Mori - an A3 MUSH - mementomori.mudhosting.net - 7700 Category:News Category:Game Concepts